Óscar Puente cuts off communication from rural Spain to please the Socialist mayor of Vigo

I'm from Vigo and live in this city, which I hold in great esteem. But there are times, like today, when I feel ashamed of being from Vigo.

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Last Saturday, thousands of people demonstrated in La Gudiña (Orense), a town near the border with the province of Zamora. The protesters complain about the elimination of high-speed Renfe train stops at the local station since June, a change that pushes this rural area of Galicia into a situation of isolation that hinders its future and forces its residents to emigrate.

La Gudiña is not an isolated case. Something similar happened at the end of May in Puebla de Sanabria (Zamora), with the cancellation of two morning stops on high-speed trains between Galicia and Madrid. It has also happened in the city of Segovia, something surprising if we take into account that it is a provincial capital.

These stop eliminations in municipalities in rural Spain are no coincidence. As Raquel Tejero explained yesterday in El Debate, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, has done this following a request from the Socialist mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, to reduce train stops between Vigo and Madrid in order to improve train times between the two cities.

That is to say, so that those of us in Vigo can get to Madrid a little faster, three towns must be almost cut off, since the elimination of bus stops seriously affects those who live in those towns but work outside of them. Coincidentally, two of the affected municipalities, Segovia and La Gudiña, are governed by the PP. The most surreal case is Puebla de Sanabria, since the PSOE governs there after a three-way tie between it, the PP, and the Futuro party. Surely the PSOE has done the math and decided that they are more interested in a city of 293,977 inhabitants where Caballero has an absolute majority than a town of 1,366 inhabitants where the PSOE governs in a minority. They cut off a town for a political calculation.

Of course, when the next elections come around, the Socialists will pretend to be great defenders of rural Spain, pretending to take note of its demands and to accept all its requests, only to throw them in a trash can the day after the elections.

On my travels, I have been able to visit Segovia, Puebla de Sanabria, and La Gudiña many times. These are three towns where I have always been treated hospitably. I have great affection for the first two, but this does not serve to disparage the Galician town. Today, seeing what Óscar Puente is doing to please Abel Caballero, I feel indignation and shame. I was born in Vigo, I have always been a resident of this city, and I am disgusted by what our mayor is doing. It is outrageous to see that this government is dedicated to pitting Spaniards against each other, granting privileges to some at the expense of others for partisan reasons, and in this case condemning three beloved towns to isolation. What a miserable idea of "progress" those who call themselves "progressive" have.

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Photo: PSOE. Abel Caballero, socialist mayor of Vigo.